6 Sep
Republican Stagecraft II
The hilarious situation with the building that was placed on the screen behind McCain in the early part of his speech is really bubbling along.
Even if you assume that somebody thought it was Walter Reed Hospital, how was anybody supposed to know that? That is, it seems to me that the first job of an image behind a speaker is either to fade into the background in some generic kind of way (like the Dems did it) or to provide some kind of symbolism that reinforces either the image of the speaker (e.g., the waving flag that came up after the Walter Reed Middle School in McCain’s speech) or that somehow underscores the words the speaker is uttering while the image is onscreen. I can’t see how even a picture of the actual Walter Reed Hospital would have served any of those purposes, but didn’t anyone notice that the picture they did use looked like a rich person’s mansion? Didn’t anybody on the convention’s production media crew realize the image would make a lot of people think about McCain’s ten houses (“Gee, I wonder which of McCain’s ten houses that is”)?
How incredibly stupid are these people? And exactly when did Republican’s lose their stagecraft mojo? Or is this just a McCain campaign weakness?